The present invention relates to networking computing, and more specifically, to network computing management through movable instances based on a user's current or future location.
Network-managed data by service providers has become increasingly popular, as the amount of data utilized by business enterprises and organizations has increased. The costs associated with hardware and storage devices, as well as their associated bandwidth requirements have made network-managed solutions more desirable.
In a cloud self-service provisioning process, an instance requester can select a resource such as a server or desktop image from an image catalog and provision an instance from it in a given data center. Once created, this instance stays in the current data center even though the user of the instance may change geographic locations. While the requester may have chosen the data center location based on his/her original location, changes in the user's geography may make that location unusable (e.g., due to network performance issues, government-imposed restrictions, and/or capabilities of a data center in the location, to name a few). For example, suppose a user is using an instance running in a data center in the United States to provide a demonstration. If the demonstration is presented in the United States, the resources running the instance may be acceptable in terms of network performance. However, if the user then relocates to Asia to present the demonstration, the quality or reliability of the transmission may be degraded. While a user could create separate instances in each data center, this solution could result in potential licensing issues and/or additional configuration work and associated costs.
What is needed is a way to move, or relocate, instances from one location to another based on the current or future location of the user.